The GOP also vehemently argues against international regulation of the Internet, and lambasts the concept of the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rule. The party says the agency is "trying to micromanage telecom as if it were a railroad network." It also calls for the use of "offensive capabilities" in cybersecurity, presumably, à la Stuxnet and more recent malware that likely originated from classified American programs. Further, the party also calls for a prohibition on online gambling as well as a "vigorous enforcement" of "all forms of pornography and obscenity."

Four years ago, Republicans did not mention the word "data" at all in the 2008 party platform, and only used the word "Internet" in context of calling for more government transparency online. Back then, the party argued for a permanent ban on "Internet access taxes" as well as a halt to "all new cell phone taxes."

We all love Internet Freedom, right?

Specifically, under the header of "Protecting Internet Freedom," Republicans lavish the Internet with praise, saying that it has "unleashed innovation, enabled growth, and inspired freedom more rapidly and extensively than any other technological advance in human history. Its independence is its power." The definition of Internet freedom, of course, is not something that everyone agrees on—generally Democrats argue for net neutrality, while Republicans say it impedes business interests.

In the same section, the platform also essentially calls for a reining in on government surveillance power.

"We will ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties; the only way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the private sector," the platform states.

Advocacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have called for similar protection for the use of personal data, which currently is available, often warrantlessly, to law enforcement agents under the 1986-era Electronic Communications Privacy Act. EPIC and others have called for reforms to this law, and said that Congress needs to step in where private industry has failed.

"We believe that the private sector approach to protect personal data has failed," said Amie Stepanovich, an associate litigation counsel at EPIC.

Ambiguities abound

However, other groups don’t see it that way, and are a bit disappointed at the language outlined in the platform.

"In context, I think it's pretty clear the ‘right of control’ they're talking about is a right against government access," wrote Berin Szoka, the president of tech policy think tank TechFreedom, in an e-mail sent to Ars.

"But it's bound to be misinterpreted by privacy regulatory advocates as a general right to control information held by third parties about us—which is essentially the approach of groups like EPIC. In particular, what exactly does the term ‘their data’ mean, anyway? The authors probably meant data that users upload or create to services—e.g., tweets, e-mails, Google Docs. But this term will likely be interpreted to mean much more than that: data merely about them—which is more properly referred to as ‘personally identifiable information.’ At best, this is poor draftsmanship."

Other legal scholars concur, saying this plank leaves more questions than answers.

"Additionally, while the right for individuals to control the use of their data by third parties could be an important part of protecting online privacy, it’s unclear exactly what this statement in the platform is referring to," wrote Woodrow Hartzog, a professor of law at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, in an e-mail to Ars.

"Individuals do not own their personal information in the traditional sense. The First Amendment also protects against many attempts to restrict the publication of personal information. Instead, a loose patchwork of laws, regulations, and contracts provide limited rights to control one’s personal information in the United States. These rights certainly protect individuals in some contexts but often leave them vulnerable to harm in many others."

"You can't tell what they mean by full constitutional protection given flux in current Fourth Amendment law on business records in third-party hands," he wrote in an e-mail to Ars.

Remember what we did to Megaupload?

Christopher Dodd, the former Democratic senator from Connecticut, and current head of the Motion Picture Association of America, released a statement on Wednesday, calling the GOP’s platform "a very smart balance."

In the statement, Dodd re-iterated his group’s call that there was an "importance of us doing more as a nation to protect our intellectual property from online theft while underscoring the critical importance of protecting Internet freedom."

In a section that specifically addresses intellectual property violations in China, the GOP's platform states: "Punitive measures will be imposed on foreign firms that misappropriate American technology and intellectual property."

That's about all it amounts to when you have basically two parties that keep voting against one another even when they say they want the same thing. Unfortunately we can't seem to get the people to stop voting for the same Republicans and Democrats that are mucking up the works. Things have become so bad that lobbyists no longer seek out politicians, politicians seek out lobbyists to secure more money.

They call for reduced regulation online, in one breath, but then call for a crackdown on obscenity, including:- Stronger enforcement of anti-pornography laws- Vigorous action against obscenity in the media- Barring sex offenders from social media sites

They also plan to outlaw internet gambling, as noted in the above story.

unfortunately, what the republicans and large corporations want is for eventually, say, 4 companies to own 99% of all relevant websites, just like the TV and Radio.

this cannot happen to such a great industry. we cannot lose diversity and be force-fed what huge umbrella companies want you to read (see the infographic 'the illusion of choice' for examples in other industries)

I'm totally confident that the GOP will force big business to respect our privacy just as the GOP respects the reproductive rights of women or indeed the rights of anyone with less than a million dollars in the bank.

I'm sure under the GOP there would be no further travesties of justice underwritten by the MPAA and RIAA. And that such extra-judicial bullying definitely wouldn't increase.

I'm reassured that GOP senators are not, in fact, big business shills.

Under the GOP we can look forward to the bright sunset of the American dream.

So, freedom for corporations to do as they will, and a vague promise to reign in the government spying started by their last administration. Oh, and support for ICANN to stay under the thumb of the US department of commerce. Meh.

Anyway, if Dodd is for it, I'm against. (And I say that as a Democratic voter born and raised in Connecticut.)

The railroad analogy is apt. After monopolistic price fixing began to set in, the federal government created a government commission, and enacted anti-trust regulations, in order to ensure the benefits of the technology would continue to enrich us all. But I don't think that's what the GOP meant to praise; they should read their history.

Anyone who thinks the GOP's idea of "internet freedom" is a good thing is woefully ignorant of how the Republican Party works. It does not in any way, shape, or form mean that they support net neutrality. It means that they think that government should not regulate internet providers in any way, as in they can open and close their networks to who ever they want.

They make the approximate noises, but the very devil is in the written details.

Except for regulatory matters pertaining to sex, where official GOP policy is to ensure a red under every bed, such sounds could just as easily translate as "we'll have industry completely regulate itself so government doesn't have to".

While excessive or misdirected government regulation may indeed become a problem at times, I suspect a more immediate concern here is identifying the difference between a light touch that strikes an acceptable balance between both industry and consumer rights and responsibilities, and a full and intentional abdication of responsibility that lets industry do to citizens whatever they like with impunity.

So unless they pony up all the hard contractual guarantees well in advance, I'd suggest observing their already established walk, not vague attractive talk, for an idea of things to come.

Translation: We don't support regulating the Internet in any way that will prevent our large campaign donors the ISPs and Telco's from charging more for Internet service while protecting their own video and telephony services with discriminatory "network management" practices.

""We will ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties; the only way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the private sector," the platform states."

What does this even mean?

Marlor wrote:

So, I guess they want less regulation of the internet, with the exception of the bits they don't like.

Of course, that's how it always is. RAHRAH RABBLE RABBLE BIG GOVERNMENT GET OFF MY BACK except for these constitutional amendments to mandate our pet issues

""We will ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties; the only way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the private sector," the platform states."

So Mitt wants to install porn filters on all new computers. But he served on the board of Marriott International from '93-02 and '09-11. Marriott, it turns out, was one of the largest distributors of PORNOGRAPHY through rentals in their thousands of m/hotel rooms. So it appears that Mitt himself has taken money generated by selling access to pornographic videos. Oh, Marriott dropped the adult movies from its newer properties, but I guess those that aren't classified as "newer" still peddle smut.

At least there's a Book of Mormon in the nightstand drawer.

Oh, while employed at Marriott, they implemented the Son of BOSS tax shelter scheme, which resulted in the company claiming $71 million in losses that federal courts later ruled never existed.

Never existed, eh? Well, I guess they coughed up the back taxes and went to work looking for a new scheme . . .

To those who say net neutrality is always a good thing: no, it is not. If you decree that 100% of available internet bandwidth must be net-neutral, you're putting World-of-Warcraft traffic, NetFlix traffic, pirated music torrents, and spam, worms, network-flooding denial-of-service attacks etc.; on an equal basis to a surgeon who is using the internet to remotely perform an urgent life-saving operation via a robot that mimics his hand-movements, or, network traffic supporting a safety-critical industrial process controlled via 3rd-party servers for a fee (potentially a new economic opportunity), or, the network traffic between a UAV pilot and the aircraft he is controlling (where interruption or slow-down of service can lead to a loss of life), or for example, the efforts of a citizen journalist to upload data over a congested mobile network that will help to expose official corruption. QoS [quality-of-service] guarantees (an actual technology built in to IP transport protocol, I believe) cannot be deployed if net neutrality is enforced. The two (in their extreme forms) are mutually exclusive!

If net neutrality wins the debate completely, then someone's pornographic movie download will be given equal priority with safety-critical, publicly beneficial data.

But let's not make this a false dichotomy. We don't need to choose between telecoms companies sucking the life out of any traffic that doesn't suit an abusive business model, and on the other hand, a draconian régime that irrationally decrees your DoS attack must have equal priority with my email. What we need is somewhere in-between these extremes... I suggest 50% of internet bandwidth should be net-neutral "best effort" by government decree, and the rest should be fair game according to the business priorities of the telecoms companies (so that their businesses can support QoS guarantees for premium IP packets for which they charge extra money, effectively subsidizing universal network coverage for the rest of us).

Until then, there'll be a reason why services like Skype can never support emergency phone-calls. That reason will be: network neutrality.

That whole notion of privatizing any concerns about privacy is sheer doublespeak. So basically, any company that wants to can spy on me online in any fashion they desire, and share it with anyone who pays them. It's just that the government isn't allowed to peek.

Unless there's some vague chance that it has to do with national security and terrorism and the White House is occupied by a Republican, in which case they want to make sure that every packet on the internet flows through the NSA in the service of building a complete profile of every man, woman, and child in the world.

There are some Republicans who have a clue about tech and about privacy, but the party acting collectively is as dumb as a box of hammers. Not that the Democrats are much better, if any.

To those who say net neutrality is always a good thing: no, it is not. If you decree that 100% of available internet bandwidth must be net-neutral, you're putting the spotty teenager's World-of-Warcraft traffic, NetFlix traffic, pirated music torrents, and spam, worms, network-flooding denial-of-service attacks etc.; on an equal basis to a surgeon who is using the internet to remotely perform an urgent life-saving operation via a robot that mimics his hand-movements, or, the network traffic between a UAV pilot and the aircraft he is controlling (where interruption or slow-down of service can lead to a loss of life). QoS [quality-of-service] guarantees (an actual technology built in to IP transport protocol, I believe) cannot be deployed if net neutrality is enforced. The two (in their extreme forms) are mutually exclusive!

If net neutrality wins the debate completely, then someone's pornographic movie download will be given equal priority with safety-critical, publicly beneficial data.

But let's not make this a false dichotomy. We don't need to choose between telecoms companies sucking the life out of any traffic that doesn't suit their business model, and on the other hand, a draconian régime that irrationally decrees your DoS attack must have equal priority with my email. What we need is somewhere in-between these extremes... I suggest 30% - 50% of internet bandwidth should be net-neutral by government decree, and the rest should be fair game according to the business priorities of the telecoms companies (so that their businesses can support QoS guarantees for premium IP packets for which they charge extra money, effectively universal network availability for the rest of us).

Won't someone think of all the lives we can save by doing away with Net Neutrality? Really? That's what you went with?